Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes ‘This pape, published late in 1925, was ead to the Intemational Psychoan- alyfie Congress at Homburg by Freud's daughter Anna. Since his cancer ‘operations in 1923, Freud, somewbat hampered in his speech, refused to appear at these congresses, much ashe mised them, Thee is some irony ina woman presenting a paper that many women have since found pro- founalyefensive. “Some Psychical Consequences” makes explicit, with technical particulats, what Freud had adumbrated brief, aphorisically, the year before (ce above, pp. 661-6). While through the decades, Freud had treated a large numberof women patents, the rial that is woman— an anfique cliché about women repeated by Freud in modern language— ‘ido yeld easly to his analytic ors. Emest Jones reports that Freud ‘nee exclaimed to Princess Mare Bonaparte, "Was wll dax Weib?—What does woman want?” (Jones Il, 421. The present paper outlines a large part of his answer Freud returned to the important and controversial theme of woman's development in two later papers, “Female Sexuality” (1931) and “Femi- ninity” (1933), the later 3 chapter in his New Introductory Lectures on Paycho-Analysis. Essentially they do lite more than restate the arguments he had advanced in the present paper. Bu in “Female Sewaliy” Freud made more than he had ealer of the litle gis pre-oedipal attachment to her mother. And in "Femininity," though he steed the active pat of ‘woman in ile, he contested that what he had to say about the subject certainly incomplete and fragmentary and doesnot always sound ftendly” {SEE., XM, 135) tis worth nosing that in he 1920s and early 1930s some pryehoanalyts, notably Emest Jone and Karen Horney (hen tll consi ring hewelf a goud Freudian), did not accept Freud's verdict that women fe virtually failed men, and said so in piste and in print Jn my own writings and in those of my followers more and more stress islaid on the necessity thatthe analyses of neurotics shall dal thoroughly with the remotest period of their childhood, the time ofthe ezty efflo- rescence of sexual life. It is only by examining the frst manifestations of the patient's innate instinctual constitution and the effects of his carlest experiences that we can accurately gauge the motive forces that have led to his neurosis and can be secure against the errors into which we might be tempted by the degree to which things have become re- modelled and overlaid in adult life. This requirement is not only of theoretical butalso of practical importance, for it distinguishes our eforts from the work of those physicians whose interests are focused exclusively ‘on therapeutic results and who employ analytic methods, but only up to a certain point. An analysis of early childhood such as we are con- sidering is tedious and laborious and makes demands both upon the physician and upon the patient which cannot always be met. Moreover,Sonte Povcuican Consegur on it leads us into dak regions where there ate as yet no signposts. Indeed, analysts may feel reassured, I think, that there is no risk oftheie work ‘becoming mechanical, and so of losing its intrest, during the next few decades In the following pages I bring forward some findings of analytic re- search which would be of great importance if they could be proved to apply universally. Why do I not postpone publication of them until further experience has given me the necessary proof, if such proof is ‘obtainable? Because the conditions under which I work have undergone 2 change, wit implications which I cannot disguise. Formety, Iwas not one of those who are unable to hold back what seems to be @ new discovery until it has been either confirmed or corrected. My Interpre- tation of Dreams (1900) and my “Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (1908) (the case of Dora) wete suppresed by me—if not for the nine years enjoined by Horace—at all events for four or five years before [ allowed them to be published. But in those days I had ‘unlimited ime before me—oceans of time" as an arniable author puts itand material poured in upon me in such quantities that fresh ex- periences were hardly to be escaped. Morcaver, I was the only worker in a new Bld, so that my reticence involved no danger to myself and tio loss to othe. But now everything has changed. The time before mei limited. The whole of ie no longer spent im working, +o that my opportnites for making fresh observations ate not so numerous. If think {see something new, I'am uncertain whether I can wait for it to be confirmed. And further, everything that is to be seen upon the surface has aleady been ‘exhausted; what remains has to be slowly and laboriously dragged up from the depths. Finally, Tam no longer alone. An eager erowd of fellow-orkers is ready to make use of what is unfinished ot doubtful, and I can leave to them that part ofthe work which I should otherwise hhave done myself. On this occasion, therfore, I fel justified in pub- lishing something which stands in urgent need of confirmation before its value or lack of value can be decided ln examining the earliest mental shapes assumed by the sexual ie of children we have been in the habit of taking as the subject af our investigations the male child, the litle boy. With litle gis, so we have supposed, things must be similar, though in some way ot other they rust nevertheless be diferent. The point in development at which this difference lay could not be clearly determined. In boys the situation of the Oodipas complex isthe fit stage that can be recognized with certainty, Iti easy to understand, because at that stage a child retains the same abject which he previously eathected with his libido—not as yet a genital one-—during the preceding periodon ‘Tae Last Cuaere while he was being suekled and nursed. The fact, too, that in this situation he regards his father as a disturbing rival and would like to get rid of him and take his place is a straightforward consequence of the actual state of afas. I have shown elsewhere! how the Oedipus attitude in little boys belongs to the phallic phase, and how its destruction is brought about by the fear of castration—that is, by narcissistic inter in their genitals. The matter is made more difficult to grasp by the ‘complicating circumstance that even in boys the Ocdipus complex has a double orientation, active and passive, in accordance with their bi- Sexual constitution; a boy also wants to take his mother’s place as the lovesobject of his father—a fact which we describe as the feminine attitude ‘As regards the prehistory of the Oedipus complex in boys we are far from complete clarity. We know that that period includes an identif- cation of an affectionate sort with the boy's father, an identification which is still free from any sense of rivalry in regard to his mother ‘Another element of that stage is invariably, I believe, a masturbatory activity in connection with the genitals, the masturbation of eay child hhood, the more o less violent suppression of which by those in charge ‘of the child sets the castration complex in action. Its to be assumed that this masturbation is alached to the Oedipus complex and serves as a discharge for the sexual excitation belonging to it. It is, however, fueeitai wheter dhe astueation has his elaracter Gn the Gis, 0 ‘whether on the contrary it makes its Grst appearance spontaneously as an activity of a bodily organ and is only brought into relation with the (Oedipus complex at some later date; this second possibilty is by fr the more probable. Another doubtful question is the part played by bed= wetting and by the breaking of that habit through the intervention of training measures. We are inclined to make the simple connection that continued bed-weting isa result of masturbation and that its suppression is regarded by boys as an inhibition of their genital activty—that is, as having the meaning ofa threat of castration but whether we are always right in supposing this remains to be seen, Finally, analysis shows usin a shadowy way how the fact of a child at a very early age listening to his parents copulating may set up his frst sexual excitation, and how that event may, owing to its after-effects, act asa starting-point for the child’s whole sexual development. Masturbation, as well as the two attitudes in the Oedipus complex, later on become attached to this early experience, the child having subsequently interpreted its meaning. It is impossible, however, to suppose that these observations of coitus are of| ‘universal occurrence, sa that at this point we ae faced with the problem of'primal phantasis” Thus the prehistory ofthe Oedipus complex, even in boys, raises all of these questions for siting and explanation; and there is the further problem of whether we are to suppose that the process 2, The Dictation of he Ondps Compl (1924,Soe Psveinca, Consequences on invariably follows the same course, or whether a great varity of diferent preliminary stages may not converge upon the same terminal situation, In little girls the Oedipus complex raises one problem more than in boys. In both cases the mother is the original object; and there is no cause for surprise that boys retain that abject in the Oedipus complex: But how does it happen that girls abandon it and instead take their father as an object? In pursuing this question I have been able to reach some conclusions which may throw light precisely on the prehistory of the Cedipus telation in girs Every analyst has come across certain women who cling with especial intensity and tenacity to the bond with their father and to the wish in which it culminates of having a child by him. We have good reason to suppose that the same wishful phantasy was also the motive force of their infantile masturbation, and itis easy to form an impression that at this point we have been brought up against an elementary and un- analysable fact of infantile sexual life. But a thorough analysis of these very cases brings something different to light--namely, that here the Cedipus complex has a long prehistory and is in some respects a sec~ ondary formation. ‘The old paediatrician Lindner {1879} once remarked that a child discovers the genital zones (the penis or the clitoris) asa source of pleasure while indulging in sensual sucking (thumb-racking). I shall leave it an ‘open question whether it is really tue that the child takes the newly found source of pleasure in exchange forthe recent loss of the mother’s nipple—a possibility to which later phantases (fellatio) seem to point Be that as it may, the genital zone is discovered at some time or other, and there seems no justification for attributing any psychical content to the frst activities in connection with it. But the first step in the phallic phase which begins inthis way isnot the linking-up of the masturbation with the object-cathexes of the Oedipus complex, but a momentous discovery which litle gins are destined to make. They notice the penis of a brother or playmate, strikingly visible and of large proportions, at ‘once recognize it as the superior counterpart of their own small and inconspicuous organ, and from that time forward fall a victim to envy for the penis. ‘There is an interesting contrast between the behaviour of the two sexes. In the analogous situation, when a little boy first catches sight of 2 git!’s genital region, he begins by showing irresolution and lack of interest; he sees nothing or disavows what he has seen, he softens it down ot looks about for expedients for bringing it into Tine with bis expectations. It is not until later, when some threat of castration has obtained a hold upon him, that the observation becomes important to hhim: if he then recollects or repeats it, it arouses a terible storm of emotion in him and forces him to believe in the teality of the threat which he has hitherto laughed at. This combination of circumstancesors ‘Tur Last Gurren Jeads to two reactions, which may become fixed and will in that case, whether separately or together or in conjunction with other factors, permanently determine the boy’s relations to women: horror of the mu tilated creature or triumphant contempt for her. These developments, however, belong to the future, though not toa very remote one. A little girl behaves diferently. She makes her judgement and her decision in a fash, She has seen it and knows that she is without it and wants to have it” Here what has been named the masculinity complex of women branches off It may put great difficulties in the way of their regular development towards femininity, if it cannot be got aver soon enough. ‘The hope of some day obtaining a penis in spite of everything and so of becoming like a man may persist to an incredibly late age and may become a motive for strange and otherwise unaccountable actions. Or again, a process may set in which I should like fo calla ‘disavowal’, a process which in the mental life of children seems neither uncoramon nor very dangerous but which in an adult would mean the beginning ‘ofa psychosis, Thusa girl may refuse to accept the fact of being castrated, ‘may harden herself in the conviction that she does possess a penis, and ‘may subsequently be compelled to behave as though she were a man. “The psychical consequences of envy forthe pens, in so fr as it does not become absorbed in the reaction-formation of the masculinity com ploy, are varions and farteaching Afra woman has hecame aware of the wound to her narcissism, she develops, lke a scar, 2 sense of ine feriority. When she has passed beyond her frst attempt at explaining her lack of a penis as being a punishment personal to herself and has realized that that sexual characteris a universal one, she begins to share the contempt felt by men fora sex which isthe lesser in so important a respect, and, at least in holding that opinion, insists on being lke a Even after penis-envy has abandoned its true object, it continues to exist by an easy displacement it persists in the character-tait of jealousy. Of course, jealousy isnot limited to one sex and has a wider foundation than this, but Iam of opinion that it plays a far larger part in the mental life of women than of men and that that is because it is enormously reinforced fiom the direction of displaced penis-envy. While I was still unaware of this source of jealousy and was considering the phantasy ‘a child is being beaten’, which occurs so commonly in gifs, I constructed 5, Thaiancepinyveoneingssitenest 4, tay tea acetone ‘och made a erage Tish tthe he Piehodndyte Morea (ni oy Seta es of hae ue Bn of per rel atthe eee eo teh ‘wus used ra he diense Micon nd in Ads any. Te typo ‘fest pblemcd erecta Eston exping he wot sll fm We now ext a al senha, se mt gen” theme ‘hs nol hc Wah itan no pat teatog sare the fee) ‘dnt ayes stone nya cies od el gos hgh ey bled ‘Reoterarmih boa Chun agence uty prance put te der fr ‘ney ermine he ee posersn pce *Som: Psrcxicat Conse QUENCES 65 a fist phase for it in which its meaning was that another child, a rival cof whom the subject was jealous, was to be beaten. This phantasy seems to be a relic of the phallic period in girls. The peculiar rigidity which struck me so much in the monotonous formula ‘a child is being beaten’ can probably be interpreted in a special way. The child which is being beaten (or caressed) may ultimately be nothing more nor less than the clitoris itself, so that at its very lowest level the statement will contain a confession of masturbation, which has attached tothe con- tent of the formula from its beginning in the phallic phase til later lie [A third consequence of penisenvy seems to be a loosening of the relation with her mother as alove-object. The situation as @ whole 4s not clear, but it can be seen that in the end the git’s mother, who sent her into the world so insuficently equipped, is almost always held responsible for her lack ofa penis. The way in which this comes about historically is often that soon after the girl has discovered that her genitals, ate unsatisfactory she begins to show jealousy of another child on the ground that her mother is fonder of it than of her, which serves as a reason for her giving up her afectionate relation to her mother. It will fit in with this ifthe child which has been prefered by her mother is, ‘made into the fist object of the beating-phantasy which ends in masturbation. ‘There is yet another surprising effect of penis-envy, of ofthe discovery ofthe inferiority ofthe clitoris, which is undoubtedly the most important of all. In the past I had often formed an impression that in general ‘women tolerate masturbation worse than men, that they more frequently fight againstitand that they are unable to make use of iin circumstances in which a man would seize upon it ax a way of escape without any hesitation. Experience would no doubt elicit innumerable exceptions to this statement, if we attempted to turn it into a rue. The reactions of Ihuman individuals of both sexes ate of course made up of masculine and feminine traits. But it appeared to me nevertheless as though mas- turbation were further removed from the nature of women than of men, and the solution of the problem could be assisted by the reflection that masturbation, at all events of the clitoris, is a masculine activity and that the elimination of clitoridal sexuality is 2 necessary precondition for the development of fernininity. Analyses of the emote phallic period hhave now taught me that in gitls, soon after the fist signs of penisenvy, an intense current of feeling against masturbation makes its appearance which cannot be attributed exclusively to the educational influence of those in charge ofthe child, This impulse is clearly a forerunner ofthe wave of repression which at puberty will do away with a large amount of the girl's masculine sexuality in order to make room for the devel- ‘opment of her femininity. It may happen that this first opposition to auto-eotic activity fails to ata its end, And this was in fact the case in the instances which I analysed. The conflict continued, and both then and later the girl did everything she could to free herself from the676 ‘Tue Last Cuarren ‘compulsion to masturbate, Many of the later manifestations of sexual life in women remain unintelligible unless this powerful motive is recognized 1 cannot explain the opposition which is raised in this way by litle girls to phallic masturbation except by supposing that there is some concurcent factor which turns her violently against that pleasurable ac- tivity. Such a factor les close at hand, It cannot be anything else than hier narcisistic sense of humiliation which is bound up with penis-envy, the reminder that aftr allthis isa point on which she cannot compete with boys and that it would therefore be best for her to give up the idea ‘of doing so, ‘Thus the litte girl's recognition ofthe anatomical distinction, between the sexes forces her away from masculinity and masculine ‘masturbation on to new lines which lead to the development of femininity So far there has been no question of the Ocdipus complex, nor has it up to this point played any part: But now the gis libido sips into a new postion along the line—there is no other way of putting it—of the equation ‘penischild’. She gives up her wish for a penis and puts in place of it a wish for a child: and with that purpose in view she takes her father as a love-object. Her mother becomes the object of her jeal- ‘ousy. The gitl has turned into a little woman. If | am to credit a single analytic instance, this new situation can give rise to physical sensations which woukl have tobe regaded 4s prenatune awakening of Ue Fea genital apparatus. When the git’ attachment to her father comes to ‘grief later on and has to be abandoned, it may give lace to an identi- fication with him and the girl may thus return to her masculinity complex and perhaps remain fixated in it. have now sai the essence of what I had to say will top, therefore, and east an eye over our findings. We have gained some insight into the prehistory of the Ocdipus complex in gitls. The corresponding period in boys is mote or less unknown. In gitls the Oedipus complex is a secondary formation. ‘The operations ofthe castration complex precede it and prepare for it. As regards the relation between the Oedipus and castration complexes there is a fundamental contrast between the two sexes. Whereas in boys the Oedipus complex is destroyed by the castration complex, in girs it is made possible and led up to by the castration complex. This contradiction is cleared up if we reflect that the castration complex always operates in the sense implied in its subject-matter: it inhibits and limits masculinity and encourages femininity. The difer ence between the sexual development of males and females atthe stage wwe have been considering isan intelligible consequence ofthe anatom- ical distincion between their genitals and of the psychical situation involved in iit corresponds tothe difference between a castration that hhas been cartied out and one that has merely been threatened. In theirSonte Psvcitcal, Consequences a7 cesentials, therefore, our findings are self-evident and it should have been possible to foresee them, "The Oedipus complex, however, is such an important thing thatthe ‘manner in which one enters and leaves it cannot be without its effects {In boys (as Ihave shown at length in the paper to which I have just referied [1924d} and to which all of my present remarks are closely tclated) the complex is not simply repressed, itis literally smashed to pieces by the shock of threatened castration. Its libidinal cathexes are abandoned, desexvalized and in patt sublimated its objects are incor- Porated into the ego, where they form the nucleus of the super-ego and. give that new structure its characteristic qualities. In normal, of, it i, better to say, in ideal eases, the Oedipus complex exists no longer, even in the unconscious; the supet-ego has become its heir. Since the penis (to follow Ferenczi (1924) owes its extraordinarily high narcissistic ca- thexis to its onganie significance for the propagation of the species, the catastrophe tothe Oedipus complex (the abandonment of incest andthe institution of conscience and morality) may be regarded as a victory of the race over the individhial. This isan interesting point of view when cone considers that neurosis i based upon a struggle of the ego against the demands of the sexual fimction, But to leave the standpoint of individual psychology is not of any immediate help in clarifying this complicated situation. In girls the motive for the demolition of the Oedipus complex ia Jacking. Castration has alteady had its effet, thich was to force the child into the situation of the Oedipus complex. ‘Thus the Oedipus complex escapes the fate which it meets with in boys: it may be slowly abandoned or dealt with by repression, or its effects may persist far into ‘women’s normal mental life. cannot evade the notion though I hesitate togive it expression) that for women the level of what i ethically normal isdiferent fom whatitisin men. Their super-ego is never so inexorable, so impersonal, so independent of its emotional origins as we requite it to be in men. Character-traits which erties of every epoch have brought up against women—that they show less sense of justice than men, that they ate less ready to submit tothe great exigencies of life, that they are more often influenced in their judgements by feelings of affection or hstiity—all these would be amply accounted for by the modification in the formation of theit super-ego which we have infeed above. We must not allow ourselves to be deflected from such conclusions by the denials ofthe feminist, who are anxious to force us to regard the to sexes as completely equal in position and worth; but we shal, of course, willingly agree that the majority of men ae aso far behind the masculine ideal and that all human individuals, as a result oftheir bisexual dis position and ofeoss-inheritance, combine in themselves both masculine and feminine characteristics, so that pure masculinity and femininity remain theoretical constructions of uncertain content.ors ‘The Last Curren 1am inclined to set some value on the considerations! have brought forward upon the psychical consequences ofthe anatomical distinction between the sexes. Iam aware, however, that this opinion ean only be ‘maintained if my findings, which are based on a handful of cases, turn ‘out to have general validity and to be typical. Ifnot, they would remain no more than a contribution to our knowledge of the diferent paths along which sexual life develops. In the valuable and comprehensive studies on the masculinity and castration complexes in women by Karl Abraham (1921), Karen Homey (1923) and Helene Deutsch (1925) there is much that touches closely on what I have written but nothing that coincides with it completely, so that here again I fel justified in publishing this paper. ‘The Question of Lay Analysis Freud published this vigorous and persuasive pamphlet in 1926, when he vw seventy. The postript, fst published in 1927 as a contribution to an International symposium onlay analysis, was tached to hisorginal polemic in the eleventh volume of bis Gesemmelte Schriften in 1928, Fread had Icn complaining for numberof yea that he was geting old and losing is up, but this litle book amply demonstrates that his lawyers argumen tate sill apd his debating vigor were undiminished, The immedhate i Sgator of The Question of Lay Analysis wana suit for quackery brought Jaguns one of followers, Theodor Rei, an anat without medical degre. ‘This suit was eventually dismised, but Freud's pamphlet as not addresed to Vienna alone. He was happy to make his poston onthe mate, alteady ‘tell known in his intimate ele, avaiable to wider public “The question of lay analysis had been occupying Fred fr yeas, and the flood of American physicians aspiring to become psychoanalysis inthe 1920s only sharpened his appeite for controversy the Americans, beset by ith healer and frauds claiming tobe practicing psychoanals, and in desperate seatch of respectability, were particulary unending in thee demand that anyone qualifying a a psychoanaljt must have a medial daze. Freud, himelf ofcourse physician, thought otherwise. The atitude ofthe Amer- icans, fr from inducing hit to change his rind, only strengthened his notorious anti-Americanism. Though the year he had persuaded a number this follower (his Sw fiend, the pastor Osha Piste: is daughter Anna 1s well as Theodor Rel to forego medical taining and move directly into piychoanalytic training instead. He had no regiel. Yet Freud’s insistence in The Question of Lay Anais thats physica practicing psychoanalysis untrained in itis a chailatan, and that lay people do not need a medial education to become responsible and efectve anal, was not a belated apology forthe advice he had so freely given years earlier. Nor did it originate with his fondness for his promising daughter, of fox his fends. As eaty a5 5, (The pape in gone Ka! Ababa, ita he Catan Compe Woe (92% Jlntatlin of fe Fede Cast Com 9 82, Ie fat] thrall ple 101 127 Sted Pron Pr. Dest Pchena of eS Poti ethan che Xl Kuen Homey Onthe Gen: Wan 1935)